55. Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea - Gary Kinder

This book, like In the Heart of the Sea, is another great example of a way to learn a lot about a historical event ... with the excitement of a fiction novel and not the boring tone of a historian. Ship of Gold is about the sinking of the SS Central America, a ship that was bringing passengers and a whole lot of gold from California to New York just after the gold rush in 1857. When it encountered a storm off the coast of North Carolina, the ship sank - along with its 400 passengers and 21 tons of gold.
I enjoyed how the author told this story: he weaves together the plot from the 1850's - the time of the sinking of the ship in 1857 - with the plot from the 1980's, when a discovery group began its attempt at recovering the ship, more than 8,000 feet under water.
Some scenes really make you feel the story. From one passage, as the ship is sinking:

"Others shot upward through black water, bursting to the surface with a desperate gasp, struggling to breathe, coughing salt water, the night dark and the wind still fierce, the waves rolling over them, choking them, and suddenly rocketing upward from deep in the sea came the missiles from a battered ship, the spars, the hatch covers, the stateroom doors, the planking, the heavy timbers propelled up from the water and into the air before falling back with a heavy crash, to stun them, crush them, knock them unconscious, to kill many of those who had survived ..."

I found it fascinating to learn about how scientist/entrepreneur Tommy Thompson was able to get investors to fund the project; the technological challenges he faced; as well as the competitors and legal battles he had to deal with. Eventually, several insurance companies filed suit against the discovery group, claiming that because they paid damages for the lost gold, they had the right to it. Thompson's team argued that the gold had been abandoned.

I learned a lot from this book ... did you know that it was the largest salvage award in the history of admiralty? The total value of the gold recovered was $150 million, and one piece of gold weighed 80 pounds and sold for $8 million! Kinder clearly did his research to be able to write this book ... though I must say, I do feel it could have been done in a lot fewer than 500 pages.